Immortal Medusa: Haunting and Eclectic

Immortal Medusa: Haunting and Eclectic

The book’s stunning cover art by American assemblage artist Joseph Cornell is a collage and tempura on paperboard—an untitled piece often referred to as Marine Fantasy with Tamara Toumanova. The collage features one of the most glamorous stars of 20th-century dance surrounded by an underwater kingdom, arms raised as if to receive whatever gifts the universe has to offer, a sacred posture. This underwater goddess—a perfect stand-in for poet Barbara Ungar—provides sustenance for neighboring marine life as algae sprouts from her dress to nourish schools of fish. This symbiotic relationship between humankind and nature inhabits Ungar’s latest poetic endeavor Immortal Medusa (The Word Works), a treasure trove teeming with all sorts of creatures: iridescent worms, blue whales, porcupines, giraffes, woodchucks, and seahorses. The reader encounters contemplative meditations about these venerable life-forms. For example, in “Reading Rumi to Dolphins,” the narrator feeds the almost otherworldly mammals and is alone at the edge of the pool, / ecstatic, chanting to the sky.

However, as much as Ungar’s poems are an existential exploration and celebration of life, they are also “an elegy to dead friends and fathers,” asserts poet Meg Kearney. This paternal tribute is noticeable in poems like “My Father Looks at Vermeer for the Last Time” and “Visiting My Parents’ Exercise Class.” In fact, the opening poem in Immortal Medusa is titled “Dead Letters” and starts with a haunting and intriguing couplet: I get letters from the dead. They blow / out of the mailbox and into the snow. Ungar later throws a wild card into the mix by punctuating the center of Immortal Medusa with a series of sometimes humorous, sometimes heartwrenching haiku in "The V.A." Each piece is a compact, meaningful universe. The poet ponders between earth and sky / will I pass my father / among white clouds? The final haiku a quirky obervation: only our dad could / enjoy his own autopsy— / still doing science.

Though Ungar is at the height of poetic intensity when memorializing those who have passed—be it man or porcupine—lighthearted pieces like “Athena’s Blow Job” and “On a Student Paper Comparing Emily Dickenson to Lady Gaga” balance out the collection. Ungar is adept at volleying between grief and joy seamlessly. Anything goes in Immortal Medusa, a poetic wonderland where haikumaster Basho is a ninja; Kabbalah Barbie is introspective and philosophizes on the nature of the universe; and readers learn about tiny men inside human sperm viewed through the screw-barrel microscope. Part of the book’s appeal and charm resides in Ungar’s eclectic choices. But the poet’s deep reverence for all types of life is what infuses Immortal Medusa with vibrancy and makes it an especially relevant read.

My Father Looks at Vermeer for the Last Time

The old scientist leans on his walker.His remaining eye is rheumy: what does it see?

He stares toward the dim chamber342 paint-years away

where yellow from Dutch stained glassdraws the eye toward the astronomer’s face

blurring away from ours forever, his handsleaping off the table with its astrolabe

and celestial globe alive with the zodiac—The light of the mind, creamy,

skims this interior murky as an uncleanedtank, an indecipherable star chart

and picture of Moses in the bulrusheshung in the muddy gloaming,

the end of knowledge. The one who set up still lifes

and gave us his paints, who drove usto endless museums, hauls off

inscrutable as a tortoise. This will bethe last time we can coax him from his lair

to meet his old friend, Vermeer, who so rarely stops by Minneapolis.

In any case, they no longer seemto have anything to say to each other.

Blue Whale

We always head straight for the dinosaurs,then the ocean creatures. I boggle at the blue whale suspended overhead,

more gargantuan than anyTitanosaur, born bigger than a bus—how can it hang here in the air

or subsist in the sea on its brothof microscopic plankton?My son never pauses, he rushes

to the sharks. The whale’s so bigand he’s so small, he can’t see it—The Hall of Ocean Life is dark blue

and dim, the whale a lightershade—maybe for him it mergeswith the room. I wonder how old

he’ll be when he first sees it, andwhat he'll say. And whathangs over me—

how many years will I put invisiting this dim Wunderkammeruntil I am big enough to see?

Why I'd Rather Be a Seahorse

We’d court for days first, changing color,swimming side by side, holding tails,or holding on to the same strand of seagrass.We wheel around each otherin our Predawn Dance, then do our True Courtship Dance where he pumps water throughhis pouch to open and displayits alluring emptiness.

When I’m ready, we let goour anchor, drift upwardsnout to snout, spiralingas we rise till I stick myovipositor in to hispouch—I slim by a thirdas he swells. After we sinkback into the waving seagrass,I'm the one who swims away.

Alone he jacks off into the sea.Fertilized, the eggs settle in,incubate for weeks. I drop byfor Morning Greetings, swim offwhile he goes back to work,sucking up food through his snout—he's eating for twoand a half thousand fry,hatched in his brood pouch.Out in the big sea, only a dozenwill survive. I never see them.I need all my energy to create.

He labors alone, at night—when I return in the morning,the fry have drifted offand he's ready for my next load.

About the Poet: Barbara Ungar’s most recent book, Immortal Medusa. was chosen as one of Kirkus Reviews' Best Indie Books of 2015 and won the Adirondack Center for Writing Poetry Award. Prior books include Charlotte Brontë, You Ruined My Life and The Origin of the Milky Way, which won the Gival Prize, an Independent Publishers Silver Medal, and a Hoffer award. Her poems are forthcoming in the Southern Indiana Poetry Review, The Worcester Review, and The Heron’s Nest. A professor of English at the College of Saint Rose in Albany, New York, she teaches literature and creative writing. For more information, please visit her web site.

About the Guest Contributor: Rita Maria Martinez is the author of The Jane and Bertha in Me (Aldrich Press), a poetry collection based on the classic novel Jane Eyre. As part of Books and Baguettes, an on-going series sponsored by the Orange Island Arts Foundation. Martinez will read her poetry, as well as additional poems from two of Ungar's collections. The event takes place July 16th in Fort Lauderdale, and the theme is "Updating the Classics." For more information about this luncheon and reading, visit the Orange Island Arts Foundation.